i liked where this leg was going at the start and that gate in the water that they visited, the name escapes me, is one of my favourite landmarks. I also thought the Hiroshima visit was interesting and new, or at least something that hadn't been done in a while, an international place of memorial like auschwitz in all stars or mandela's cell in tar2. but from therein things went downhill. whoever plans the race or whatever must really REALLY love japanese game shows, i mean it's not enough that it has been done before and even then it's not enough to have only one, but two gimmicky game show-esque tasks (chicken grab and sushi bingo) to showcase Japan? the point of the photo task seemed to be to ironically reverse the japanese tourist stereotype which is a little twisted and almost racist i think. and teams went to the floating gardens in the Umeda sky building to recreate TK and Rachel's clue finding difficulties? surely there must be some other place of significance to hide a clue in the entire city of Osaka.i did like the pit stop greeters which varied from the normal person in traditional costume with little connection to today.I think this entire leg could have been forgiven if Art and JJ channelled their inner Misa and Maiya and walked away from the pit stop, at one point i was so sincerely hoping it would happen >< it would have probably been the most epic thing ever to happen if the first and last eliminations had occurred in such a similar fashion

I actually much preferred Chicken Grab to the Sushi roulette from an earlier season (which was basically just a simple eating contest). The Bingo one though didn't work well on TV as I think I said earlier. The taking photos with Japanese people was alright but seemed a bit easy.